Executives from the hotel, cruise, tours, retail, OTA and destination marketing sectors talk about their assumptions and plans for the year ahead. The interviews were conducted by Travel Weekly editor in chief and senior vice president Arnie Weissmann.
Dan Sullivan, CEO, Collette
In the United States, the economy is very strong right now, and I think it's getting stronger and will continue to stay strong. The European community has bounced back nicely, and they're on solid footing now. Even with all the things that are happening in the EU zone, it's still positive and moving forward. Basically, people are optimistic.
I think outbound travel from the United States is going to be very strong. We're seeing strong increases in Europe, strength in travel in Canada, South Pacific, Asia, Africa all are doing better than last year, and last year was better than the year before. Even Egypt's coming back a little bit. A very nice upward trend.
I think there are still tremendous growth opportunities in South America it's a mostly undiscovered market for Americans. They go, but never in great numbers. But we're seeing a good uptick and opportunities for expansion.
Finland, Japan, Vietnam are particularly strong. Colombia is an emerging destination, maybe like Iceland 10 years ago.
We don't handle Chinese outbound, but that's vibrant, and wherever they're traveling in the United States and Europe, it puts pressure to build hotels and infrastructure. It hasn't impacted [our ability to get rooms] so far because they play in either the three-star or five-star market, and Collette plays very strongly in the four- and four-star-plus.
In the United States, the economy is very strong right now, and I think it's getting stronger and will continue to stay strong.
People were staying away from China because of the smog issues, but it's bouncing back. We won't get to pre-Olympics numbers, but it's easing back up.
The political situation is hurting Myanmar. It's been very, very soft.
Inbound to the U.S., guests from Canada, the U.K. and Australia have been only slightly up, whereas the rest of the world is robust, even up triple digits in some cases. Trump is a factor, yes.
And the decision to reduce [the size of Bears Ears National Monument by 85%], that's terrible. We need to be supporting our national parks and monuments. Similarly, this administration had said they would put more money into infrastructure, and that's not happening. That's not good for travel, not good for business. Particularly because the president came out of the hotel industry, I thought he would understand how important that would be to our economic growth. You have to fuel the engine that drives the world's largest industry.
Collette will turn 100 years old in 2018, and we have the largest sales force in the travel industry to service our agent partners. They help explain our positioning: best buy for the money in the industry.
We're going to have a gala celebration in June to celebrate our centennial, with travel partners coming from all over the world. The focus will be on ideas. Our history has been one of innovation and continuous transformation, and that will continue. Today, we really take people behind the scenes. Our travelers now have more choice and free time even when in a group, they don't all have to do the same thing. Travel's the great educator of the world, and we facilitate that, and that is what has really helped us emerge as a leader in the travel space.